This copy is for your personal non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies of Toronto Star content for distribution to colleagues, clients or customers, or inquire about permissions/licensing, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com

CBC movie The Phantoms revisits aftermath of fatal high school van crash

The CBC-TV movie The Phantoms — based on the true-life story of the 2008 crash that killed seven members of a New Brunswick high school basketball team — has been met with resistance by some family members of those who died.

By Bill Brioux The Canadian Press

Sun., Nov. 18, 2012

The CBC-TV movie The Phantoms — based on the true-life story of the 2008 crash that killed seven members of a New Brunswick high school basketball team — has been met with resistance by some family members of those who died.

But executive producers Timothy M. Hogan and Rick LeGuerrier (Canada Russia ’72) knew what they were getting into when they took on the project. Both are from New Brunswick; Hogan went to Bathurst High, the school that suffered the tragedy.

“It certainly had a deep impact on Tim and I,” says LeGuerrier, who met with concerned parents beforehand.

The film never shows the accident, in which the wife of a coach also died. It’s all about what came next for the surviving players, teachers and others. Improbably, the Bathurst High Phantoms rebounded in 2009 to win the New Brunswick provincial high school varsity basketball title.

“The producers, Rick and Tim, were really sensitive to the moms and to the story,” says director Sudz Sutherland (Love, Sex and Eating the Bones).

Article Continued Below

“For me, it was all about the resiliency of the human spirit. It was all about getting back up after you’ve been knocked down.”

Sutherland’s other concern as a director was making the basketball scenes look real. Actors always say they can ride a horse or play hockey or basketball but they’re hired for their acting first, not their sporting abilities, he says.

Sutherland (who, back in the day, played basketball and football at Toronto’s Woburn Collegiate Institute) teamed up with a few actual Bathurst High coaches and ran a two-week basketball camp with the actors.

“The five guys playing the starters got to the point when they were shooting and practising on their days off,” says Sutherland.

In one scene in which they’re supposed to be losing, the director had to ask his actors to start missing shots and let up.

“These guys had developed their game and their pride to the point that they weren’t going to get beat by anybody.”

Tyler Johnston (The Killing), who plays Corey Boucher, one of the original players who survived the van crash, says the boot camp “really left us no choice but to get better.”

The actors spent three months in Bathurst and shot most game scenes right in the school’s actual gym, in front of the coaches, teachers, students and other members of the community.

“You walk into that gymnasium the first time,” says Johnston, “and you look up on the walls and it says, ‘Home of the Phantoms.’ They’ve got banners up on the wall since 1907.”

Johnston, who now lives in Vancouver, says the East Coast community of 13,000 made all the actors feel at home.

“We got invited to people’s house for dinner and to the coach’s party the first weekend. We could not have felt more welcomed ultimately.”

Sutherland also gave his young actors copies of inspirational, true-life sports films such as Hoosiers and Coach Carter to draw on.

He feels the best high school sports films “unify us and bring us back to our own high school coaches who told us that if we out-hustle or out-think them, we will win.”

He also feels these films resonate because, “as a teenager, you feel things so intensely, and I think we always remember that, at least partly.”

LeGuerrier stresses that The Phantoms is not a documentary but is inspired by true-life incidents. Some characters are composites of other people. The movie was written by Gemini Award-winning screenwriter Andrew Wreggitt (Mayerthorpe).

There are many authentic touches in the final production, however, including appearances by the actual 2009 Bathurst High provincial championship basketball team. They play the opposing team in the finals. “Those guys can play basketball!” says Johnston.

Sutherland is proud to be associated with a film in the tradition of Hoosiers, but even more proud that it is based on a true Canadian story.

“We look so much to the States,” he says, “but these stories happen here.”

The Toronto Star and thestar.com, each property of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, One Yonge Street, 4th Floor, Toronto, ON, M5E 1E6. You can unsubscribe at any time. Please contact us or see our privacy policy for more information.

More from the Toronto Star & Partners

LOADING

Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or distribution of this content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Toronto Star Newspapers Limited and/or its licensors. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www.TorontoStarReprints.com